


Covered in Lines

by royal_chandler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 03:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royal_chandler/pseuds/royal_chandler
Summary: He can’t lose sight of pale, deft hands that gesture on transitive verbs, an ink-stained thumb edging underneath Tony’s ribcage with an affection that can only be called dangerous.





	Covered in Lines

**Author's Note:**

> I blame tumblr and [this post](http://realsashafierce.tumblr.com/post/173928639339/this-tony-with-this-steve-and-its-game-over-for). It became a demanding brainworm and to get started on my StonyLovesSteve assignment, I had to just write this and get it out there. Although, with my awful grammar, it is straight up blasphemous that I undertook an AU about a Lit professor.
> 
> Because I listened to Sufjan Stevens on repeat while writing, the title comes from "John My Beloved." It has nothing to do with the subject matter but the phrasing works too well, so much so that you'll see I ended up paraphrasing it in the fic. Thanks to Sufjan for making many things possible.

When signing up for English 252, Tony had every intention to treat it like the bullshit requisite class it is. He’d show up every day so as not to fail the course and actually graduate come spring but he’d willingly take the hit on his participation percentage, sit quiet in the back of the auditorium, and scrawl cramped equations in the Norton Anthology that could only raise its sell value. Tony would put minimal effort into analyzing _Ode to a Nightingale_ or whatever introductory poem that would be assigned.

It’s senior year and Tony is at a zero dollar balance when it comes to giving a fuck.

That is until the professor walks through the door—broad shoulders stressing out the navy knit of a cardigan and cambridge blue eyes sweeping the room behind thick black frames—and suddenly Tony is here for all of the fucks. He scrambles out of the back row and slinks down closer, already planning to arrive early on Thursday morning and grab a seat front and center because god, Dr. Rogers is gorgeous. And he’s so smart, so versed in verse, that Tony doesn’t stand a chance. Fully engaged, he fixates on a generous mouth that navigates Proust’s ekphrastic lines and Brooks' complex narrative with impressive ease. He can’t lose sight of pale, deft hands that gesture on transitive verbs, an ink-stained thumb edging underneath Tony’s ribcage with an affection that can only be called dangerous.

*

“I have to disagree,” Tony says, only shoots his hand in the air for propriety’s sake. 

“It really wouldn’t be a day ending in ‘y’ if you didn’t.” Rogers says, turning away from an actual chalkboard and dusting off his hands. He’s got a smirk on his face and Tony has learned that smirk, know that he’s being invited to continue before the words are even uttered. The smirk softens to a smile and the world shrinks to the two of them. Rogers tips his chin. “Go ahead, Tony.”

“Longfellow is great for what he was but what he was, for the most part, is conventional.” Tony hitches his elbow onto the armrest, thrilled by how the bright autumn sun emphasizes the glint in those impossible eyes. “His writing examined the socio-political climate of his time and that’s definitely admirable but he didn’t take risks elsewhere. He was a fireside poet and reads like a fossil because of that.”

“So he’s without credence because he’s not eclectic?” Rogers challenges. He’s got his brow raised and crosses his arms before him. Tony wonders again: does the man ever buy clothes in his size?

Tony swallows and then straightens. “I didn’t say that...exactly.” He shrugs a shoulder. “I just don’t think any creator can afford to be old-fashioned and rest their laurels on tried and true. Especially when their contemporaries are continually changing the game. It’s a guaranteed way to get left behind.”

“That’s a fair assessment.” And from experience, Tony knows this concession is meant for a short life. The oh-shucks sigh comes right on time and that breathlessness right there is half the reason Tony plays the part of contrarian. “However, it’s two-hundred years later and we’re still discussing his work so it seems that Longfellow might be inclined to disagree with you, Tony.”

Dryly, "I am very concerned about being in good standing with dead poets. Guess I can’t have him at my next seance then.”

Equally straight-laced, “That’s a pickle. The lack of an invitation could possibly draw even more ire. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, Mr. Stark.”

If they were anywhere else—anyone else—it might be considered more than a sarcastic exchange between teacher and student, more like teasing banter meant to lead somewhere direct, flirting.

Tony is mostly definitely flirting but Rogers is better than that because not only is he undoubtedly knockout, intelligent, and in possession of a sense of humor that metaphorically charms the pants off Tony; he’s honest-to-god good. The sort of good that always struck Tony as a myth, presiding by morals and code—a compass that doesn’t waver past true north. Of course Rogers is excellent at what he does—the captivating leader who sparks inspiration and work ethic in their students, even the ones like Tony who are only taking the class as an elective—but more than that, it’s palpable how teaching is a religion to him. For all intents and purposes, his path in life. It’s a faith that he wouldn’t undermine easily, not for something as frivolous as a crush, not for someone like Tony. He’s just too good but damn if that goodness doesn’t make Tony want him all the more.

*

It’s Friday night and Tony is two jack and cokes deep. It’s a good night. He can’t decide if it becomes better or worse when he spots Rogers at a till, stuffing a few bills into the sad tip jar while handling a carryout bag, but Tony makes up his mind to follow him out all the same. Over the din of the bar and a top 40 hit, he promises his table that he’ll be right back. Maybe.

And all of the stories are full of lies because it’s freezing out and Tony feels every bit of it; the rabbit-race of his heart does nothing to make up for his forgotten jacket. His shout of ‘Dr. Rogers’ is drowned out by an ill-timed kick of wind so with a rush of nerves, he jogs down the sidewalk and tries again, “Steve!”

He seems surprised to see Tony, to hear his name, but pleasantly so, the corner of his lips ticking up before he’s bearing a smile with devastating wattage. Steve gives up on opening the door of a car that is absolutely illegally parked and that alone brings a stupid grin to Tony’s face. “Tony! Oh hey! How’s it going?”

“Hey, hi. I, uh, I saw you inside.” Tony jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "I just wanted to come out and say hi. So, you know, hi.”

They both laugh at that, low and soft under a star-splashed sky and a strobing street lamp that buzzes on and off.

“What’d you get?” Tony asks, rocking on his feet and nodding at the bag in Steve’s grasp. He pushes his glasses up a bit.

“Late dinner. I don’t usually come out this way but I’ve had a hankering for broccoli and cheddar soup since the cold front moved in and this is the best place in town to get it,” Steve explains. “Also it’s nice to take a much needed break and get away from grading the mountain of papers I’ve got back at home.”

Tony winces, pulling a face. “Ouch. Are they that bad?”

“No. Not all of them. Not even half, honestly. There’s just a lot to go through. Takes time,” Steve says. Gesturing out palm up, he adds on. “Funny enough, I actually just finished yours a little while ago. Very memorable.”

“Ugh, don’t continue,” Tony replies with a wave of his hand, only half-joking because he remembers typing that embarrassing monster out, unable to shut up about Sylvia, symbolism, and self. It’s one thing to get written feedback but the prospect of talking about it twists his insides. 

“It’s the assignment I look forward to most each semester. When students allow themselves to write with less guarded affection and admiration. You were no exception to that and, well, your essay taught me a great deal about you. You did wonderful.” There’s a nervous stutter in Steve’s smile, shy almost. The long fan of his lashes heavy and then lifting up slow. “You always do.”

“Thanks,” Tony murmurs, stunned. “That’s. Yeah, thanks.”

A gaggle across the street rips through the new silence and awkwardly Steve asks, “So do you come here often?”

It’s comical, how wide Steve’s eyes get at that slip. He actually says _whoops_ , follows it up with _shit_. Tony would laugh because what a fucking line but Steve’s reaction is a telltale. It’s guilt wrapped in shame. He starts to stammer out an embarrassed apology that Tony quickly rambles over because he doesn’t want Steve to take it back. “It’s fine. I do come here all of the time, you know? I drink. Not that that started at exactly twenty-one and, truth be told, I probably drink more than I should but I am twenty-one. So I’m of age. Way past it. Steve, it’s okay. It’s fine. It’s fine.”

Steve rubs at his forehead with his free hand and looks around, entirely too conscious of tipsy passersby who couldn’t care less about what’s going on between them. Pained, he says, “ _Tony._ Tony. I’m eight years your senior. This is far from fine.”

Tony doesn’t hesitate in comforting him. He reaches out and takes Steve’s hand, holds it between his own, slips his fingers underneath the cuff of Steve’s coat and smoothes over the topographic map of his veins.

Steve’s breath hitches. He wants this. It’s so mindblowingly clear to Tony now. Steve wants this just as badly as he does. 

“At ease there. It’s fine,” Tony tells him again, taming and quiet.

“You’re drunk,” Steve says after a deep inhale and steadier exhale.

“So?”

“So you have no idea what you're say—” 

“You’ve got pet hair all over your coat,” Tony notices aloud, interrupting him. He looks up at Steve, irrationally and desperately longing to know this about him. “You’ve never said. Why have you never said? What do you have?”

Steve peers back and Tony is lost at sea, baptized in blue. “Um, two border collies, they’re both six. Brothers. And they’re rambunctious, to say the least. You mix that with shedding season and it’s an unparallelled disaster. I have to lint-roll between coffee and Good Morning America.”

Tony steps further into Steve’s space, clutches the material of his coat with a strong fist and yanks him closer. “What gives you the right, huh? You’re just locked and loaded with adorable and it’s unfair. And frankly rude. What are their names?”

Steve’s gaze flickers, lips then eyes and lips once more. “Gandalf and Gimli,” he says, hushed, so near and dear. 

Tony curses because he’s falling for a dork who parks his car illegally and names his dogs after Tolkien characters. “How the hell am I supposed to—”

He surges up and touches his lips to Steve’s, coaxes him into a kiss that tastes like relief. It’s sweet and chaste and sends a severe shiver up Tony’s spine. The chill causes him to pitch forward into a curl, into Steve and seek out his warmth, press into the rasp of his beard and nip at his lush bottom lip. Tony licks into Steve’s gasp and delights in the wet heat of his mouth. The trace of his tongue makes Tony think of poetry, covers him in lines that he’s been pouring over night after night for weeks now, makes him think about occupying this space forever, and it has him aching because so few things in his life, if anything, have ever felt this right.

His eyes sting when Steve wrenches away, noses at him with wounded noises that break Tony’s heart before leaving Tony’s hands empty and cold. His vision clears to the sight of Steve backing away.

“Don’t. Please don’t,” Tony begs, a croaky mess of alcohol and hurt. Shit it hurts so much. He’d had no idea how inconsolable the other side of this could make him feel. 

“I’m sorry, Tony. I— we can’t do this,” Steve says roughly before he’s in his car and gone.

*

Steve is Steve which means he’s infuriatingly adult about the whole thing. He invites Tony to discussion, listens attentively still. It’s almost as if it never happened. Almost save for the fact that the soft smiles and sniffs of laughter are absent and replaced with false lightheartedness, jokes that don’t quite land. The words between them lack life and whatever fondness there was has been tidied out. 

Steve used to flood the margins of Tony’s essays with roses-to-thorns commentary: from his appreciation of Tony’s unorthodox theses and take on imagery to reminding Tony to watch his spelling and the liberal use of commas, and _your extreme bias is showing._ Steve would spin an array of arrows to excerpts he particularly liked, emphatic underscoring and exclamation points that would leave Tony preening. 

The first assignment Tony gets back post-kiss has an A inked in scarlet at the top corner—not unusual but Tony can’t help noting the irony. Steve’s additions don’t get any more interesting past that, however. The notes that he bothered to make on the next eight pages are so customary and flat, Tony is half-surprised there isn’t a smiling kindergarten sticker emblazoned with ‘great job’ at the end.

Tony has been compartmentalized and it sucks.

Wanting to shake Steve out of his chivalry, Tony tries to hang back a couple of times after a lecture, meandering in the dregs of the class until they're alone but whenever he does, Steve’s face shadows with shame and it’s like talking at a really pretty statue. Except maybe marble would be more animate because Steve doesn’t give anything away as Tony prattles on like an idiot and when Tony finishes, hoping and helpless, Steve’s response is unchanging. _No._

Honestly by the time midterms roll around there’s only one option left. 

Tony reads the assigned prompt, opens his blue exam book, presses down on the stapled spine and pens in absolute bullshit. 

*

The email arrives three days into fall break and the new alert Tony setup, a fitting chorus by Van Halen, comes through the speakers of his workshop.

 _We need to discuss your mid-term. Before the next class, I’d like for you to stop by during my office hours. Thank you. Best, Dr. Rogers_ , it says.

Tony reads it on repeat until it’s real, until he trusts his fingers enough to unwrap them from his wrist. He types out _okay_ , hits send, and turns his attention back to DUM-E’s code, swallowing around whatever just leaped up to his throat.

*

“Wow, this office really pulls your whole academia-slash-old man aesthetic together,” Tony comments after he’s taken a seat at Steve’s desk and a swivel around, taken inventory of all the knicks and all the knacks and most of the titles that stuff the bookcase, some worn and some newer. “You’ve got post-its peeking out from the top of your books and an open box of greeting card sized envelopes tucked in the middle shelf. How much did it kill you to send that email? It’s like typewriter rebellion up in here. It should be obnoxious and offensive to everything I stand for but it’s not because it’s you and you make everything endearing. Which is consequently annoying.”

“That’s not my intention. I’m not trying to annoy you or endear myself to you. I thought that—” Steve mugs conflict and then determination, the same stern expression he got once when a paper airplane was loosed in class during his presentation on the Romantics. “It was inappropriate for me to kiss you.”

“I kissed you actually.”

“Tony, the point is that you’re my student and it should have never happened. It was a breach of trust and a failure of my being your educator.”

“God,” Tony groans, burying his face in his hands. 

“But I can’t accept you tanking on an exam so what I want is for you to retake it and then I’ll speak with my supervisor regarding my misconduct,” Steve says and Tony’s head snaps up at that utter ridiculousness.

“And potentially get yourself fired for what exactly? This isn’t illegal and I’m not even going to be your student come January!” He throws up his hands, stops short of pulling on his hair. “Does your affinity for self-sacrifice switch off?”

“I’m trying to do what’s right,” Steve gives back, tone impassioned and _exhausted_. After a moment, he deflates where he sits, shrugs defeated. Quietly, mostly to himself Tony gathers, he continues, “And most days, I can’t tell what that is anymore.”

Without preamble, Tony gets up from his chair and steps around the desk. He makes room for himself by pushing aside the random leaflets and papers that litter the surface of it, the fucking New York Times crossword in progress and the pen resting over the tiny boxes, Steve’s wireless keyboard that could definitely stand an upgrade. He sits in the cleared area and pulls on Steve until he’s standing in the vee of Tony’s legs, pleat and denim friction. 

Tony reaches out and strokes the line of his jaw, thumbing back and forth. “Hey there.”

“I want to do what’s best for you,” Steve whispers simply. 

There’s insomnia-made colors under his hunted eyes and his hair is coming out of place, teak fringing over his dark frames. There’s stubble outside the outline of his beard, leading to a wrinkled collar and the off-center knot of his tie that ducks into a crew neck decorated with dog hair. Tiny details that Tony wants to selfishly keep for himself. His thumb finds the half moon at the corner of Steve’s pink mouth, presses it gently and reveals a sad smile that nearly robs Tony of the air in his lungs. 

“Then tag because you’re it, beautiful,” Tony replies, smiling back at him.

“I need you to be sure. This has to be something you want. That’s important to me,” Steve says and Tony lets himself be vulnerable to the search of his gaze, doesn’t hide anything. He bares naked the want that’s been there since the beginning, the affection he holds for all that Steve is, and the self-possession that anchors Tony’s decision.

“You’re very noble. It pushes buttons I wasn’t aware I had,” Tony confesses. Biting his lip, he ventures his hands down Steve’s front and up again, looping his arms around his neck. “It’s a huge turn-on, you caring so much. I’m really, really into it, okay? I want you to kiss me. I think about it all of the time. Cross my heart, you have my enthusiastic consent to do dirty things to me. It would bliss me out of my mind.”

“That’s not what this is. Not only anyway,” Steve says, leaning in while his hands drop to Tony’s hips in a solid grip. His voice drops with wonder. “I didn’t count on you happening.”

“I’m an unpredictable brat that way. Feeling’s mutual though.” He touches his forehead to Steve’s until he makes up the edges of Tony’s vision. His fingers run up Steve’s nape, sweep into his hair and card through it. “What did my fingers do before they held him?” Tony recites softly. “What did my heart do, with its love?”

“And you call me unfair,” Steve breathes, almost there, not even inches away. Tony can feel his fragile laugh. “You sure you want to keep with engineering?”

“Never wanna share this with anyone but you,” Tony swears.

And finally Steve kisses him. It starts with the teasing brush of lips and happy exhales against mouth and eyelids and cheeks before he’s urgently tugging Tony against him and licking into Tony’s mouth in a way that can only be defined as plundering. And god, Steve giving up the ghost is glorious. He sucks on Tony’s lip after an eager bid behind his teeth, pulls it slick and salacious between his own. The sight of him is something else when he draws back, panting and flushed and Tony _did that_. Grabbing the hem of Steve’s sweater, he has it in mind to reward himself, has it halfway up when Steve stops him with a gentle hand. 

“No, no, no. How fucking Catholic are you?” Tony whines. 

“We can’t do this.” The echo of words are softened with a kiss of apology to the inside of his wrist this time around. 

Still, Tony wrinkles his nose. “That is my fast becoming my least favorite phrase.”

“It is very hard for me to stop. Trust me. But you flunked your midterm spectacularly, Tony. You have to retake it and I have to attend a faculty meeting in an hour and a half.” Steve adjusts Tony's crooked glasses and puts a kiss to Tony’s nose, murmuring _cute_ before moving away to his filing cabinet. “Not to mention anyone could come through that door and put a damper on things.”

“Not a fan of dampers,” Tony sing-songs, hopping down. 

“Nope,” Steve agrees, passing over a blue book and a pen. He gets behind his computer, booting it up.

“You know, there’s no need to impress me,” Tony says, cracking his knuckles and smirking. “If you have an actual typewriter to dust, I won’t judge you.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Oh, you're a real riot. Start writing, Tony.”

And settling in across from Steve and his happy hum, Tony finds that the words come easy.

**fin**

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that Tony recites from is "Three Women" by Sylvia Plath.


End file.
